The Utopians

This article is available to subscribers only, in our archive viewer. Get immediate access to this article for just $1 a week by subscribing now.

ABSTRACT: OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about Boykin Curry and his wife Celerie Kemble who plan to build a utopian development in the Dominican Republic… Writer describes flying into Playa Grande on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic to visit Curry and Kemble. Playa Grande is a 2,200-acre plot of land near the town of Cabrera, which includes beaches, cliffs, jungle and a golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones. Kemble and Curry bought it with the help of a group of friends including Moby, Charlie Rose and Fareed Zakaria. Curry imagines a classical Athenian village-updated-in which four-star restaurants and art galleries could share street space with locally-run fish shacks and pool halls… Each of Curry's visits to Playa Grande so far has been accompanied by one or two disenchantments, such as being made sick by the drinking water or bothered by mosquitoes… Writer visits Curry at his apartment on the 27th floor of the Trump building on Central Park South. Curry gives regular cocktail parties and fund-raisers with guests ranging from Barack Obama to Courtney Love. Curry was born into a prominent banking family and attended Yale, where he published the best-selling book ”Essays that Worked.” He worked in management consulting before going to Harvard Business School. In 1997, he began running a large hedge fund. In the late 1990s, he made enough money to start indulging his “Mosquito Coast” fantasy. He met Celerie, a fourth-generation Palm Beach aristocrat in 1998. She introduced him to her friend Delio Gonzalez, who introduced him to the Dominican Republic… In February of last year, Curry secured a private 737 jet for a weekend day trip to show the place off. Many of the same crowd gathered in Palm Beach for the Curry-Kemble wedding six days later. Discusses Curry and Kemble's careful selection of partners for the project. Curry is in for roughly fifty per-cent of the over-all Playa Grande investment, with the bulk of the co-founders pitching in about a million dollars each. But Curry retains one-hundred per-cent of the overall decision-making. As originally drawn up by the landscape architects Hart Howerton, Playa Grande is to have four main geographic components: a golf course with a boutique hotel, farms with an equestrian center, a science research facility and nature preserve, and an artists' colony… Tells about architect Richard Meier's initial plan for the colony. Discusses Curry's dealings with Jorge Cavoli, the mayor of the nearby town of Cabrera. Curry has agreed to fund a promenade along the oceanfront in the town. Describes a New Year's party at Playa Grande.